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The Patriots play just outside of Boston. The Jets play just outside of New York. The Patriots can put up the points with the best of them, but struggle at times to stop anyone on defense. The Jets are often awful offensively, but they have arguably the best defense in football.

The differences between the two teams run up and down the scouting reports, but perhaps the biggest difference between the two, and the best representation of the rivalry, is the difference between the two head coaches.

Bill Belichick and Rex Ryan could not be any different, and that’s just one of the many things that make the rivalry so great. When you compare the coaching styles of the two, the similarities pretty much end after “they’re both head coaches in the NFL.”

On one hand you have Belichick who has created a winning environment in Foxboro by staying focused on the task at hand. Belichick preaches that the most important game is the next one. He’s made a habit of announcing that he’s moving on from one week to the next. And if anyone has watched more than five minutes of one of his news conferences and not wondered what the point was is lying. Belichick is all about keeping quiet and staying focused on what is directly in front of him, and when it’s all said and done, the Hooded One is the one with a hand full of Super Bowl rings.

Ryan, however, will not keep quiet. The rotund head man of the Jets has no problem looking ahead, and he’s usually looking ahead to the Super Bowl. His Super Bowl proclamations have become an annual rite of passage, despite the fact that he’s yet to get his team to the big game. He has no problem telling it like it is, or at the very least, telling it like he thinks it is. His news conferences are the antithesis of Belichick’s media sessions, to the point that Ryan sometimes doesn’t even come to them as himself. One thing you will never question, though, is that Ryan likes to keep things fun and he has no fear, qualities he has seemingly instilled in his team over the last three years.

Despite the undeniable differences in the two head coaches, it is tough to argue against their abilities as the game’s best motivators, no matter how they get there.